


Trains, Right? I Love 'Em.

by rhythmickorbit



Category: Hetalia: Axis Powers
Genre: Alternate Universe - Human, Being late to work, Darkness, Eldritch, Fluff, M/M, Mildly.... fluffish?, Poland and China are only mentioned HOO Sorry, Psychological Horror, Slight horror element, Talking, Trains, a little angsty
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-25
Updated: 2019-06-25
Packaged: 2020-05-19 12:29:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,083
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19357042
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rhythmickorbit/pseuds/rhythmickorbit
Summary: Morning train rides are stressful as is. It's even worse when you get trapped on them. Alone. And when it appears that the train is not stopping.





	Trains, Right? I Love 'Em.

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Lotus_Dumplings](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lotus_Dumplings/gifts).



Kiku jerked awake with the sickening feeling that he had missed his stop. He sat upright in the sickly-gray seat and looked wildly all about the train car, sucking in a panicked breath through his teeth when he didn’t see anyone else there. How far was he from where he was meant to be?

Very far, Kiku realized when he glanced out of the window. The sky, although gray and bloated with an oncoming rainstorm, had long past progressed beyond the cusp of sunrise and had bloomed into the full light of day. Kiku swallowed, anxiety beginning to twist his stomach in its gigantic, meaty hands. He bit his lip, and looked around the train once more just to make sure—

There was one other person on the train, and he was fast asleep. He looked impeccable, almost as neat as Kiku would have liked to be. Kiku played with the idea of waking the man up in his head, but squelched it down. No, it would be rude to do something like that.

Anxiety, however, proved to be a significantly more powerful motivator than he anticipated. Unsteadily, Kiku stood up, and carefully made his way to that adjacent seat. He reached out a hand, and nudged the blond man on the shoulder. He jerked his hand away immediately, not wanting to seem too precocious in his advance.

The blond man opened his eyes after a minute, blinking away the haze of sleep. His blue eyes were striking against the otherwise beige, drab garb of the train’s interior, and Kiku felt taken aback by their fierce intensity as they turned toward him. There was only the soft sound of the tram chugging along the smooth track outside, and in that instant it seemed that the blond man reached the same revelation as Kiku did. His shoulders tensed, and he checked the expensive-looking watch resting on his wrist. The man’ eyes widened slightly, and his panicked eyes jerked to Kiku like a hawk’s on a field mouse.

“What stop are we going to?” the man’s accent seemed German in nature, although Kiku did not admit to being an expert on European accents. Kiku raised his hands helplessly.

“I meant to ask you the same thing,” Kiku replied, his own voice betraying a nervous tremble. The man glanced around the passenger car, frown chasming ever deeper when he took in the void in each seat. 

“The conductor would have woken us up,” the man mumbled softly, and stood up. He strode with purpose halfway down the aisle before Kiku followed with a haphazard gait. 

“Are you certain?” Kiku said nervously, the emptiness of each worn seat beginning to grate on his nerves. “Perhaps there was some kind of… maintenance that had to be done?”

The man shook his head, and stopped at the door at the end of the aisle. A furrow in his brow marred the otherwise smooth skin of his forehead, which, to Kiku’s surprise, he found a shame—one as stiff and strong as this man should not have cause to worry.

The unease of the man caused Kiku’s nerves to fray further, and he peered around the other’s broad shoulders.

“Closed for repairs,” said the door.

“This isn’t right,” mumbled the man, who tried the handle. It didn’t even rattle in his strong grasp.

Goosebumps crept to the surface of Kiku’s skin like iron filings toward a magnet. The man tried to open the door again, and again, before he seemed to tire and give up. His shoulders slumped.

“It seems,” said the man. “That we’re stuck—on a broken down train that continues to move.”

“I don’t believe that I’ve been in such a situation before,” Kiku mumbled dryly, and leaned against the seat next to himself. He glanced at the man, suddenly feeling the heaviness under his eyes acutely. Anxiety roiled like a stomach full of grease, and Kiku’s thoughts raced with the implications this held-- a broken down train could only mean death. Jumping would only have the same effect as waiting would, but what was the point of prolonging it?

At least Kiku wouldn’t have to face his stern-eyed boss with the implication that he would be late-- albeit for the first time. 

“If we are to be stuck on a speeding train together,” the blond man said, his gaze on the faded carpet and not on Kiku’s face. “I suppose I could at least tell you who I am.” Blue eyes lifted, piercing the thick haze of Kiku’s mind. A hand was extended. “Ludwig Beilschmidt.”

Kiku shook the man’s hand tentatively. “Honda Kiku,” he replied.

 

* * *

 

 

“Where were you going on this rainy morning?” Ludwig’s baritone voice was dreary, tired, and his gaze was an infinite mile away as he stared at the rain pouring down outside.

“Work. I assumed that’s where you were going as well?” Kiku tilted his head back at Ludwig.

A tired, sideways smile. “No. I was going to a wedding rehearsal.”

Ah, so that explained how polished the man looked. Kiku glanced at Ludwig’s seat and realized that there was a package, wrapped in what appeared to be a recycled paper bag. He raised an eyebrow slightly.

“Were you in a rush?”

Ludwig huffed sheepishly. “Well. I was busy with my own career, so figuring out the best gift for a finicky Pole was not on my mind for the past few… months.”

“Long time to procrastinate,” Kiku found himself smiling, despite the circumstances. “When my brother got married, I bought the gift the night after his announcement.”

“Truly?”

Kiku shook his head. “No. I bought the gift three days before the wedding.” He tilted his head. “At least I used actual wrapping paper. Besides.” He turned back to the rain continuing its descent outside. “You don’t normally bring gifts to the  _ rehearsal  _ of all things.”

Ludwig seemed to be suppressing a retort, but he relaxed his shoulders. “I suppose I should have thought of that.”

 

* * *

 

“So, Honda,” Ludwig said. “What sort of career path are you following?” The way he looked Kiku up and down made Kiku’s cheeks warm. 

“I just work in an office,” Kiku admitted, hands unconsciously wringing together. “It… pays well,” he lied feebly, thinking about the glares of his boss on a daily basis, and the possibility  of homelessness always looming over him.

“That is a job,” Ludwig folded his hands. “Not a career. What do you really want to do?”

“Art,” the thought immediately popped into  Kiku’s mind. “Painting, to be exact. Ink, too.”

Ludwig nodded knowingly. “I could guess.”

“In what way?” Kiku’s gaze snapped to his shirt-- was there some kind of ink stain there?

Ludwig waved a hand amusedly. “No, your hands. You have an artist’s callus, and ink under your fingernails.”

“You were looking at my hands?” Kiku stared at Ludwig, that cursed warmth coming to his face again.

“No, no, not like that. Not in a creepy way, on purpose,” Ludwig added hastily. “It  was rather on accident. Ah. Um, you have nice hands, though, despite the ink.”

They stared at each other for a moment, and looked away at the same time.

“Thanks?” mumbled Kiku.

 

* * *

 

Afternoon sun peered through the clouds outside, and Kiku awoke from the floor of the train. His back muscles protested  as he sat up, rubbing his face. The train had not crashed yet, apparently. He glanced outside, the landscape racing past at the same rate as before. Kiku frowned as he observed the scenery-- it was more swampy in nature, rather than the deciduous forest and urban areas intertwining like in the city.

Uncomfortably, Kiku saw Ludwig draped across two seats. He  looked rather more disheveled like that, and, incredibly, Kiku felt his stomach clench at the unwanted thought of touching the other man’s hair. He pulled himself together and walked over, politely tapping Ludwig on the shoulder.

Ludwig awoke almost immediately, sitting up straight when he saw Kiku standing over him.

“It’s been… several hours,” Kiku reported, starting to chew on the already fairly ragged flesh of his inner cheek. 

“We haven’t crashed into anything?” 

Kiku shook his head. “I’m starting to think that this train is… going someplace. Instead of crashing, I mean.”

“Indeed. But… why is there no one else here, then?” Ludwig stood, and began to pace about the aisle. Kiku watched him nervously.

“I don’t know,” Kiku admitted. “The whole debacle makes… no sense.”

Ludwig let out the smallest puff of breath, and sat up. There was now a break in the rain, and the sun peeked out from behind a layer of clouds from outside, although the sight was diminished somewhat by the tinted windows of the train.

“That is an understatement,” Ludwig muttered, leaning his forehead on the wall in front of him.

Kiku, recalling how crowded and unsanitary the tram would have been, grimaced slightly. “I wouldn’t do that.”

“If I die through infection, it will have been through my own terms.”

“And that’s somehow better than dying by a train speeding into a building or who knows what?”

Ludwig chuckled and straightened his posture. “Like I said, my own terms.” He rubbed his cheek, a gloomy cloud darkening those sky-like eyes. “Wish I could have seen the wedding, though.” He paused, seemed to be close to saying something, but in the end simply shook his head at some sentiment that Kiku would never know.

 

* * *

 

“What’s in the present?” Kiku asked.

Him and Ludwig lay in the aisle of the train, scarlet-tinted light dancing in through the windows as the day wound down outside. Kiku wondered about how his brothers were-- Yao would be particularly upset by now, since Kiku normally texted him back at least once. However, Kiku’s phone did not receive reception on the train. He could not seem to fathom why.

“The time period? Or my poorly wrapped gift?”

“The latter.”

Ludwig snorted. “A set of antique horse plates. My friend loves that sort of thing.” his voice drifted into foggy territory-- sad, unclear, uncertain. Kiku could certainly relate.

“Well, they will certainly get… much use out of them? I would hope?”

“Would have, anyhow.” 

“Yes, I suppose our plans have been… somewhat derailed by this point.” They both chuckled at the poorly executed joke.

“Honda,” Ludwig said suddenly. “Have you felt hungry at all during this… excursion?”

Kiku focused his attention onto his own body, its memories, and its current state of being. He shook his head. “I don’t think so.”

“I would say that that is strange,” Ludwig’s voice turned toward the dry side. “But I don’t want to repeat myself again.”  
“Indeed, we wouldn’t want to get bored with each other.”

 

* * *

 

The train no longer crossed landscapes that even remotely resembled those that Kiku was familiar with. Shadows grew longer, and the interior of the train did not do any favors to those with direnal eyes. Kiku tried desperately to memorize the odd, rocky plains around the vehicle, in some vain attempt to figure out where he was. Light, however, became sparse, and then almost nonexistent as Kiku’s surroundings faded into fuzzy black.

“Honda,” Ludwig’s voice pierced the dark silence.

“Ludwig,” Kiku replied, half-jesting.

“Talk to me.”

“Why?” Kiku blinked rapidly, his body’s way of trying to bring back the visual images around him.

Ludwig spoke hastily. “I am not afraid of the dark. It’s just,” he hesitated, and the rumbling of the wheels below seemed to inundate Kiku’s eardrums. “I have not lived alone for a long time.”

Understanding was the only light that Kiku needed at that moment. “I see.” He recalled the warmth of his siblings’ breathing in an adjacent hallway, the sweet rasping of a cat’s purr as it slept next to him. “I never have.”

A wordless exchanged was reached as Ludwig moved from his felted alcove to Kiku’s, and Kiku could feel the body heat radiating from the former as he sat awkwardly next to him.

“Is this okay?” Ludwig’s voice trembled, a startling development in the ever-comforting baritone.

“I did invite you over here.”

“No, you didn’t.”

“Well, pardon me for trying to prove that telepathy exists.”

“It doesn’t.” Ludwig’s voice became lighter, less burdened by the idea of leaving something behind-- something that was far, far behind him on the train tracks.

Kiku wasn’t sure how long they talked, but the blackness consumed everything but Ludwig’s presence as he fell asleep.

 

* * *

 

Kiku awoke in inky darkness to a heavy, hot weight pressed up against his side. Panicked, he pushed the weight off, only to remember that Ludwig had fallen asleep next to him. He could hear Ludwig’s soft exhalations through the lull of train wheels on tracks, and immediately calmed.

Well, as calm as one could be on a train speeding through the world, apparently. Kiku sat up, and wondered if his phone would turn on after all of this time. He and Ludwig probably could have stayed up a little bit later, had Kiku used the flashlight installed on his cellphone. No matter, though.

Kiku switched his phone on, and immediately furrowed his eyebrows at the sight on the screen.

It read: 9:46 AM.

The sun should have long begun to rise, warming the land with its firey eyes. Kiku, however, could only see the inky darkness encroaching on the light emanating from the screen. He sucked a breath through his teeth, and gently stepped around Ludwig.

Kiku was unclear on what possessed him to walk toward the door leading out of the train car. He knew that it was stuck fast, but nonetheless he continued to stumble through the aisle. Hand shaking, he placed it on the cool, metal door to balance himself at the end.

The door vibrated, which wasn’t entirely unusual in of itself, due to the movement of the train. What was unusual, however, was the low rumble coming from behind it. It filled Kiku’s chest, drowned out the whirr of the train’s movement. His teeth shuddered with the sound’s intensity, which brought to mind the growl of some kind of animal. Something feral and hungry.

Kiku, in a fit of impulse that seemed so common to him lately, knocked on the door.

The little source of light that he had was snuffed out, and Kiku was immediately knocked backward from the door. He quivered slightly, scooting back from wherever the force came from. Despite the fact that it was behind a metal barrier, Kiku could not help but feel that whatever there was from…  _ beyond  _ was coming. Closer, faster.

“Ludwig?” his voice had reached a higher register than he would ever care to admit.

He heard the German man stir from the back of the car. Kiku followed the sound, knocking his elbows and knees on the seats as he went. 

“Honda?” Ludwig sounded surprised. “What time is it?”

“We have to find a way out,” Kiku implored, voice stumbling and dragging as he grabbed what he assumed to be Ludwig’s shoulder. Kiku was not, by nature, a physical person-- but in this case, he was willing to be in order to get his only companion to  _ move. _

“There’s no way out,” Ludwig argued, and Kiku could imagine the furrow between the other’s eyebrows. “We tried the door. I couldn’t get it open.”

“Did we try a window?”

“Are you suggesting that we jump from a moving train?”

“Are you implying that it would be better to wait for whatever…  _ that  _ thing is?” Kiku pointed with a trembling hand to the door down the aisle, despite the fact that it was impossible to see. His breath had become shallow, and his nose burned with the bitterly cold air now surrounding them.

Bitterly cold? Kiku felt nigh certain that the temperature on the train had been just fine before. His body began to shiver in retaliation, and his skin pricked with both the freezing air and apprehension.

Something slammed into the door-- a hollow, metallic sound that made both Kiku and Ludwig freeze momentarily. 

_ Slam. Slam. Slam. _

Over and over, whatever was behind the door made impact with the barrier. It had seemed so strong before, when Ludwig was trying to open it-- now, Kiku just wanted it to remain shut.

Kiku felt his way to one of the nearby windows, and fumbled for the latch. He desperately ran his fingers over the lock mechanism, and cursed his lack of observance from earlier. He twisted some kind of latch, and the window popped open. Hot air blew into Kiku’s face with a violence he didn’t expect, but he made an effort not to flinch for Ludwig’s sake.

And his own sake. That was good, too.

“Come on,” hissed Kiku, eyes flicking uselessly toward the source of the noises, the living thing that was growing progressively closer as the door finally crumpled underneath of the weight.

“Honda,” Ludwig’s voice was tight. “ _ Wait--” _

Kiku grabbed Ludwig’s hand, and stepped onto the seat for leverage. “Wouldn’t you rather die by your own terms?” he challenged. The previously loose grip on his hand tightened, and Ludwig seemed to agree.

Kiku jumped through the window, which was suddenly much wider than before. Ludwig tumbled after him, and they flew backward just as a gurgling, watery snarl slithered  _ right behind Kiku’s ear-- _

And they were in the air, falling into a dark void. Kiku expected to hit his head on the ground, to rupture it and spill blood. Ludwig was yelling, but it seemed to be swallowed by the void around them-- the infinite dark with no stars to speak of.

Kiku shut his eyes tightly, although it made no difference. “I just wanted to go to work,” he cried out.

 

 

* * *

 

Kiku woke up with a start. The train was packed, with some people standing up and holding metal bars to keep steady. It was loud-- kids jabbered at their tired parents, elderly people spoke to relatives on their phones, and teenagers listened to their too-loud music in an attempt to drown out reality.

He glanced at his watch-- it was a whole hour before he had to be at the office.

Kiku sagged in relief, slumping against the seat as a text from Yao popped up on the screen of his phone. That relief was brief, however, as Kiku caught a glimpse of ice-blue eyes looking at him curiously from across the train car.

A cold sweat broke out on the back of Kiku’s neck as he and Ludwig made eye contact.

**Author's Note:**

> Hey all! This is something a little bit different from my usual stuff, but I really hope you enjoy it anyway. I messed with the psychological horror element, although it was REALLY MILD. This was for my exchange with Lotus, and I worked for SO LONG on this. Eventually I had to just be like, "Well, it is what it is".
> 
> My prompt was "Trainride" and I used GerPan as the ship ;0 you can interpret it as romantic or platonic tbh I just threw em together. 
> 
> Alternate summary: Two bros, stuck on a ghost train, one inch apart cause they are gay


End file.
